Hard Tackle: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (45 page)

C
hloe didn’t speak
to me much at work. You didn’t need to be a genius to figure out why. Good thing really, because as we’d established, I was certainly no genius.

Chloe had the brains, and right now, her brains were telling her to have as little to do with me as possible. She should have known by now that I didn’t give up easily. I wanted her, and I was going to get her.  

I considered asking her to come by my apartment, but she would just think of an excuse to get out of it. She’d be washing her hair, or talking to her mom, or something equally trivial.  

Despite keeping her distance, she never failed to do what was required of her in the office. All I all I had to do was appeal to her work ethic.

I had a dinner meeting tonight with one of our major customers, but the guy was boring as hell and ate like a pig, which given how expensive the restaurant was, always ended up costing me a fortune.  

I closed the door to my office and gave him a call to postpone the dinner. He sounded genuinely disappointed, but I knew that was only because the guy liked a free meal. I left the diary entry in the calendar, and called Chloe into my office.

“How can I help?” she asked, without looking at me. She stared down at her pen and paper as if there were something interesting on it. No more jokes, no more cute smiles, no more insults. This was going to be hard work.

“I have a dinner tonight at the restaurant on the Italian place near the north end of Douglas park.”

“Yes, with Mr. Young.”  

“I’d like you to come along.”  

“Me? Why?”

“I got a call from him while you were at the dentist. He isn’t too happy with our prices and wants to talk numbers. He’s going to make me hammer out a deal over dinner, so I want you there to make a note of what’s agreed.”

“I’m sure he’ll follow up with an email the next day,” Chloe replied.  

I’d never had to work so hard to convince a woman to let me buy her dinner before.  

“I plan to get him drunk, so I wouldn’t count on it. He’s always a soft touch when he’s on the booze. Can you make it?”

“Sure,” Chloe said reluctantly. You’d have thought I’d just ask her to miss her own wedding. “Do you want me to go home and get changed first? That restaurant is rather formal I think.”

“It is, but don’t worry, you’re just perfect as you are. Your attire, I mean. It’s fine.”

Chloe nodded and left the room. I had my work cut out for me with this one. This must be how normal men felt when trying to impress someone they liked.  

Well, it was fun to have a challenge for once. And Chloe was worth it.

T
he restaurant manager
knew me well at this point, so he gave me the large, circular table in the corner with plenty of privacy. It wasn’t particularly intimate, but I preferred it to the other small tables crammed together in the middle.  

My business often required sensitive conversations, and I wanted to talk to Chloe tonight without worrying about everyone else listening in as well.

“I feel a bit underdressed,” Chloe said, as she looked around at the other women here who were nearly all wearing elegant dresses and expensive necklaces.  

Chloe had on a knee length skirt and a tight fitting white blouse. No ugly necklace tonight though. Can’t say I missed it. I’d love to see her in a dress, but even like this she was still the best looking woman in the place by a mile.  

“You look great,” I insisted. “I’m hardly in my finest suit either.”

We sat down, but Chloe left a lot of space between us. If Anders were coming, he’d need all that space for his fat ass, but it was just the two of us now, so I had hoped to sit a little closer.

“When is Mr. Young arriving?” Chloe asked.  

“Ah, well, he’s not actually.”  

“He’s not?”

“No, I called and canceled this morning.”  

“Okay. You know, if you cancel a meeting, there’s not much point then showing up for it.”

There’s the cheeky Chloe I’d been missing these last few days. Perhaps tonight wouldn’t be too bad after all.

“I canceled the meeting so that we could spend some time together,” I explained.  

“Like a date?”

“Yes. Like a date.”

Chloe considered it for a moment, but then put down her menu and picked up her purse. “We should leave. We can’t do this. I can’t do this.”

“Because we work together? I’m not denying it could be awkward, but the way I look at it, we’ve already done the part we aren’t supposed to. This is simple in comparison.”

Chloe shook her head. She didn’t put down her purse, but she hadn’t stood up yet either. I still had a chance.

“It’s not because we work together. I’m just not interested in a relationship with you.”

So
that’s
what it felt like to hear those words. Like someone had taken a knife and very slowly slid it between my ribs and directly into my heart. After this dinner, I had some apologies to make. Many, many apologies.

“How will you know until you try?” I asked. I don’t know why I thought that would work. It never had when women said it to me.

“I… I’m just not that into you,” she said. “There’s no chemistry.”

This time her words didn’t hurt. They couldn’t. It was such an obvious lie. No chemistry. Bullshit. There was more chemistry than either of us could handle. Why was shy lying?  

“You don’t need to worry about what happened the other night,” I said. “What we do is no one else’s business.”

“It’s not that,” she replied. “I just don’t think we’re a good match. We’re very different people.”

“Is this about Roddy? I haven’t acted on that information yet. If it wasn’t for you, he would be dead already, but I’m doing what you said. I’m thinking about it.”

“But you still want to kill him?”  

“Of course I want to kill him. Can you blame me?”

“Do you enjoy killing?”  

“What? No, of course not. That’s a ridiculous question. Why would you even ask that?”  

Chloe went to reply, but closed her mouth as the waiter came over to take our drink order. Chloe ordered some wine, which at least suggested she was prepared to stay through dinner. That was a good start.

“I know about the man in the factory,” she said once the waiter had left.

“The man in the factory? That sounds like the title of a Sherlock Holmes story.”

“Don’t joke about it,” she snarled, suddenly turning angry. “Before we went away for the weekend, you murdered a man in cold blood.”

“How the hell do you know about that?”

“I read about his death in one of the newspapers left lying around in the cafeteria. So you admit it?”

“No, I definitely don’t. But I know what you’re talking about. He was already dead when I got there.”

“You were covered in blood when you got to the car.”

“Yeah, because my stitches tore open.”

“I just don’t know if I can trust you,” Chloe said. Those words did hurt, because she definitely meant them.

“You can trust me. I trust you.”  

“You do?”

“Yes, of course. The only other person I’ve ever been this close to was Kara, but even that wasn’t the same. With you it’s… different. I can’t explain it. I’ve never cared what anyone thought about me, but you’re the exception. What do I have to say to prove to you that I’m being honest with you.”

“Tell me what happened in the factory.”  

I took a deep breath, and told her everything. I didn’t leave out any of the details. She looked visibly relieved when she heard my side of the story. I should have just told her from the start. If you trusted someone, you shouldn’t pick and choose the information you trust them with. It was everything or nothing.  

“Why didn’t you just tell me this from the start?” Chloe asked.  

“I was trying to keep you out of danger. I still am. Well, I’m trying, but I’m not doing a very good job of it. I can’t put you at risk.”

“Stop being so fucking arrogant,” Chloe replied, stunning me into silence. “I make my own decisions. If I want to help you, then I will. You don’t get to decide what I do.”  

“You’re so cute when you’re angry,” I teased.  

Chloe pursed her lips and her face turned bright red. I might have gone too far with that one. She looked like she was about to explode, but when she finally exhaled it was to laugh and give a weary smile.  

“You’re a hard man to stay angry with,” she replied.  

“The easiest solution is to not get angry with me in the first place. That way, you cut out all the negativity.”

“You make that difficult sometimes,” Chloe said. “But I’ll try. Just stop being a jerk.”

“I’ll do my best,” I promised. “Does that mean you’ll stay for dinner?”

“Oh, I was always going to stay for dinner. Have you seen this menu? Like hell I’d say no to a free meal here.”

I smiled, and forced myself to look down at the menu. I could happily stare at her all evening, but that might creep her out at some point.  

She was wrong about one thing though. I did have to protect her. I would never be able to live with myself if anything happened to Chloe. The sooner the situation with Roddy was sorted the better.  

I had to get him out of the picture, and I only knew one way to do that. I had to kill him.

D
enton never invited
me back to his place after dinner. He dropped me off, gave me a kiss on the cheek, and that was it. So much for being an arrogant playboy.

I’m not saying I necessarily would have gone home with him, but it would have been nice to have been given the choice. I suppose that’s what you get for falsely accusing someone of being a murderer.

Whatever tension was left between us had disappeared by the next day at work. We were back to our old ways, which meant I could be sarcastic and insulting again.  

Denton didn’t even bother to argue when I insisted on accompanying him on one of his little visits to collect a debt. He knew better than to tell me to keep my nose out now.

I had to make sure to wear the necklace this time. Last night, I’d left the necklace in my purse, so all that Lois heard was a load of muffled voices. She called to question me about it and I pretended the air heating had been broken in the restaurant and I’d needed to keep a jacket on which covered the necklace.

I didn’t know if she believed me. I didn’t know if I cared.

A part of me wished I had recorded the conversation. Denton had done a good job convincing me of his innocence, and I wanted Lois to hear that as well. Unfortunately, he’d also referenced us sleeping together, so all-in-all, it was best that conversation remain lost.

Before turning on the necklace, I warned Denton that I wanted to keep things professional while we were out in public. He verbally agreed, but then pinched my ass as I walked out the door, so I had no idea how seriously he’d taken my request.

“What’s today’s meeting about?” I asked, as we drove out of town to a small supermarket.  

“Debt collection,” Denton replied.

“Ah.” I knew what that meant. Someone was going to be on the receiving end of a beating. “Why are you going personally?”  

“He’s a friend.”

“You enjoy beating up friends?” I asked, genuinely curious as to why he was so dead set on doing this himself.

“No, but it’s better I do it than someone else.”

Denton was obviously confident he’d get the money, because he’d brought along a briefcase to keep it all in. Strangely, the briefcase suited him, or at least it did when he wore a suit covering up all his tattoos.  

I still found it strange that he could look so professional one minute and so… bad when he was undressed.  

We arrived at the supermarket, and walked straight into an office at the back of the store. The manager didn’t look at all surprised to see us.  

“Denton,” he said solemnly. He didn’t look surprised, but he didn’t look happy either. “Boy, am I glad it’s you.”  

“You owe fifteen thousand dollars, Bruce. You’re just lucky my dad didn’t make the visit personally.”

“I know, I know. But I just don’t have the money. We’re losing customers every week to that new chain store up the road. I thought we’d be able to repay the debt once the insurance money came in, but they denied our claim for some bullshit in the small print.”

“Can you pay anything?” Denton asked.

Bruce shook his head, and looked down at the floor. “Maybe a thousand, but even that’s pushing it.”

Denton sighed and slipped off his jacket, before handing it to me as if were a ring girl before the start of a boxing match.  

“Let’s get this over with,” Denton said. “Which side is still sore from last time?”  

Bruce pointed to the left hand side of his chest. “Land a few on the face this time. I don’t want your dad thinking you went easy on me.”

Denton walked forward, but before he could land a punch, a young girl, no more than seven years old, ran into the office bouncing and smiling in a way that only seven-year-old girls could manage.

“Daddy, Daddy, I finished the puzzle and…” She trailed off as she saw Denton and I standing there looking serious.  

“Sweetie, Daddy’s busy with some customers now. Can you pop back to the kitchen and do another puzzle?”  

“But I want to show you what I did.”

Denton turned to look at me. “Chloe, get her out of here.”  

I nodded and offered my hand to the young girl, who took it willingly. We walked back to the kitchen where she showed me her completed puzzle.  

The walls were thin and we soon heard the sounds of Denton’s punches landing on Bruce’s face. He must have fallen over as well, because there was a thud as something heavy hit the floor.

“What’s that noise?” the girl asked.

The next time she saw her dad he would be covered in bruises--maybe even blood--and looking a lot worse for wear.  

“Daddy is stopping a burglar,” I said. “Your daddy’s very brave and he wants to keep everyone here safe.”

“Oh. Okay.”  

She went back to doing her puzzle, which was actually a connect-the-dots picture, and by the looks of it would end up as a butterfly.

Denton appeared ten minutes later, so we left the girl to her puzzle. She looked happy enough, and with any luck Bruce would be able to clean himself up a bit before she saw him again.

We got back into the car without saying a word.  

“Are you okay?” I asked. I knew that
physically
he was just fine. Other than some scraped knuckles, and a slightly sweaty brow, he looked the same as he had when we’d walked into Bruce’s office.  

Mentally though, he looked like he was struggling. Denton could handle violence just fine, but no one wanted to beat up a friend, even if by doing so he was helping the friend out.

“I’m fine,” Denton replied tersely. “But the worst is yet to come.”

“Why? Where are we going next?”

“Now, we’re going to pay a little visit to my father.”

B
efore sending
me on this assignment, the FBI had devoted some resources to monitoring Denton’s father, but they had never had much success. They knew his home address and one of his offices, but he conducted his less legal activities elsewhere.  

The FBI had tried to get a warrant to tap his phone and email, but there wasn’t enough evidence to convince a judge. That was one of the reasons why this operation was focusing on Denton; at least we knew where he spent most of his time, and he never made any effort to stay hidden.

Lois would love to know where Denton’s dad worked, and thanks to Denton leading me right there, she now did.  

Kieran Russell had a fearsome reputation in Chicago. He was probably about as close to a mob boss as you could find today. I didn’t know a lot about the man, but I knew I was terrified as we pulled up to the side of the road in downtown.  

“Follow me,” Denton said, as he headed down the road, briefcase in hand, even though it must be empty.  

I’d never put much thought into where Kieran's base of operations would be, but even if I had, I wouldn’t have guessed it in a million years.

“A flower shop?” I asked, as we walked inside. “Your dad works out of a flower shop?”  

“He likes the smell apparently,” Denton replied. “I suppose when you do so much shit day in, day out, you need a nice smell to cover it up.”

We headed to the back of the store and into a small office filled with so much smoke that I couldn’t see Kieran until he was just a few feet away from me.

Keiran and another man put their cigars out and both stared at me.

“Who’s this?” Keiran asked Denton.

“This is Chloe. She’s my assistant.”

“She shouldn’t be here.”  

“I trust her,” Denton replied. “Chloe, this is my dad.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Russell,” I said, stretching out my hand and only just about managing to keep it from shaking. Some nerves were only to be expected; Keiran must be used to it.  

“Nice to meet you too, love,” he said, shaking my hand and smiling in a way that couldn’t have been more creepy if he tried.  

“And this is James,” Denton said, motioning to the other man who didn’t move from his chair. “He’s an old friend of the family.”

James gave me a wave of acknowledgment, but didn’t say anything. Even with his silence, he managed to come across far friendlier and more polite than Keiren.  

“Alright, enough of the pleasantries,” Keiran said, sitting down at his desk and putting his feet up on the table. “You get the money from Bruce? If not, he better not still be breathing.”

Denton was supposed to have killed Bruce over fifteen thousand dollars? No wonder Bruce looked so relieved to see Denton and not someone else. No doubt Kieran's other thugs would have put a bullet in Bruce the second he admitted he couldn’t pay the debt.

Denton unlocked the briefcase in his hand and passed it to his father. “The money’s all there. And I took a few grand extra that I found in the cash registers and safe.”

There was no way that store had a few thousand in the cash registers early in the morning, and Bruce had made it clear he only had a thousand dollars at most. Where had that money come from?

The money must have been in his briefcase all along. Denton was paying Bruce’s debt for him.  

Keiran pulled out a few of the stacks of bills and flicked through them, taking a rough count of how much was in there.  

“Good, good,” Keiran said, when he’d finished counting. “I’m thinking you should kill him anyway. Bruce messed us around for months. We need to send a message that we’re not to be messed with.”  

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Denton said. He was trying to remain calm, but I could tell he looked tense. His hands were clenched by his side, and he looked about ready to deliver his second beating of the day. “I gave Bruce a serious lesson in paying his debts. He won’t be walking or talking for a while.”

“A few punches doesn’t get the message across,” Keiran argued.

Denton opened his mouth to speak, but his uncle beat him to it. “I agree with Denton. If we kill everyone over late payment, no one will want to do business with us, period. This is a good compromise.”

Keiran seemed to agree, although he clearly wasn’t happy about it. How many men had died just because this oaf thought he needed to send a message? He talked about death as casually as other people talked about going to the movies with friends.

I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, and when Keiran’s phone rang we had a good excuse for leaving.  

“Denton, wait up,” James yelled after us, as we were walking out of the store. “Good work back there. Your father is getting more trigger happy with each passing day. It’s practically a full-time job to keep him from killing everyone who looks at him funny.”

“Tell me about it,” Denton replied. “Thanks for agreeing with me in there. Hopefully that was enough to save Bruce’s life.”

“Until the next time he takes out a loan and doesn’t repay,” James said. “That man’s a screw up. I know he’s your friend, but he needs to lay off the gambling.”

“I’ll have a word with him.”

“Remind him that he owes you his life. And fifteen thousand dollars. I am right in assuming that you repaid the debt for him?”

Denton nodded. “He’s broke.”

“You’re a big softy,” James said.  

I laughed, and both Denton and James turned to look at me, having seemingly forgotten I was there.

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ve just never heard anyone refer to Denton as a softy before.”  

“Yeah, I bet he’s never soft for you, eh love?”

“Jimmy,” Denton scolded. “Enough of that.”

“It was a joke. Alright, I’d better be going, before your father puts out another kill order. Nice to meet you, Chloe.”

“You too,” I replied. By comparison to Keiran, James was a bona fide pleasure to be around, rude jokes and all.

“So, you’ve met my dad,” Denton said, as we stepped back into the car. “Feeling okay?”  

“Surprisingly exhausted, actually.”

“In that case, how about we take the rest of the day off? Fancy seeing my apartment?”